


The Case of the Missing Chess-Piece

by shellfishDimes



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canon Rewrite, Gen, Implied Relationships, Nightmares, Post Reichenbach, Post The Great Game, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellfishDimes/pseuds/shellfishDimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rework of Conan Doyle's <i>The Empty House</i>, set in the BBC <i>Sherlock</i> universe. Sebastian Moran, after Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Missing Chess-Piece

He sees them struggle on the edge of the rock through the sights of his sniper rifle. They're caught in the crosshairs, both of them, and as he sees Sherlock stumble, every instinct, every nerve ending is telling him to shoot, but he remembers Jim's orders. Orders are something he can never go against, not even now. Jim tugs on Sherlock's coat, that stupid trust-fund, Daddy's-inheritance coat, and Sherlock loses his footing. For a split second, Sebastian sees the look on Jim's face — an odd mix of shock and triumph — and then they're falling.

Then there's nothing but the roar of the falls.

Sebastian loosens his grip on the rifle.

On the other side, John Watson arrives too late. Sebastian watches him grope behind a loose stone and find the note Sherlock Holmes had been writing. Through the sniper scope, he watches John Watson read his best friend's goodbye note which Jim had, in a gesture of mercy or perhaps macabre amusement, let him write. The doctor pockets the note. He lingers for a bit, staring dumbly down the drop. He begins his descent back to Meiringen. Sebastian sets his rifle down. To take a shot would have been pointless: his quarrel is not with John Watson, and he poses no threat.

Methodically, he disassembles his rifle, taking care to give his full attention to each step, even though the movements of his hands come so naturally he could have done it with his eyes closed. And then, just as he is about to leave, he sees movement on the opposite shore. Swiftly and silently, he slides back down into position, pulling his pistol out of the reaches of his coat. Someone is struggling to climb back up the ledge, grabbing at protruding roots and rocks. He doesn't let the breath catch in his throat, not for a second. The form is far too tall, the limbs too lanky to belong to Jim.

Sebastian angrily stomps out the dash of hope that had awakened, and aims his pistol at the heap of boulders just above the path. The shot dislodges some of the smaller ones at the base, and he watches with satisfaction as the biggest one comes loose from the pile and rolls unstoppably down towards Sherlock Holmes' struggling form.

He searches every inch of the shore, twice. He doesn't find the bodies.

Sebastian stays in Switzerland for another week, taking apart and reassembling his rifle in his hotel room, polishing it, waiting.

John Watson goes back to London. Sebastian knows he should, too. The job isn't over. He's allowed himself to be unprofessional. And that's not how it goes. You move on, because it might be you next; you have to keep moving, and there is always more work to be done. He doesn't allow himself any hope; it's an entirely useless emotion, especially in a situation like this. Instead, he packs up his rifle and gets a discreet private plane back to London.

He doesn't spread the news. It'd upset the balance. There are a lot of people who want Moriarty dead, and to know that this had happened would send all their enemies — and some of their allies — into a vicious battle for dominance over London's underworld, a battle Sebastian hopes to postpone for as long as possible. There were few who knew Moriarty's face, so Sebastian hopes his death will pass unnoticed for a while.

He assumes the position in the middle of the intricate web Moriarty had woven all over London. He tugs at and straightens old threads, and spins new ones, circulating envelopes thick with notes of various currencies from one end to the other, putting tabs on mobile phones and, sometimes, putting bullets into bodies. All the while, he keeps himself poised and ready to sniff out the scent of Sherlock Holmes.

The entire organisation falls onto his shoulders, and at first it's nearly overwhelming. He spends many sleepless nights in Jim's old flat, poring over a laptop and sheets of paper with endless, endless streams of numbers, fuelled by many cups of Irish coffee. Soon he gives up the coffee and leaves just the whiskey.

Jim's flat feels foreign and cold, and Sebastian's shoes echo oddly on the black oak floors. Everything feels too big, like he's a child again, walking through the tall-ceilinged rooms of his family home. His footsteps are muted on the soft, cream-coloured carpet as he steps into the bedroom. He pulls open the door to the walk-in closet, and, kicking his shoes off, steps in wearing only his socks. It doesn't feel right, walking in shoes in another man's closet.

Jim's suits and shirts are on their hangers just as he left them, neatly ironed and colour-coordinated. Sebastian ignores them, sinking instead to his knees and going into the drawers. He pulls each of them open in turn, finding belts, cufflinks, all arranged systematically. Briefly, he runs his fingers across the smooth surface of Jim's ties, noticing an empty space where the tie he wore to Switzerland is supposed to be.

He pauses for a second before unceremoniously grabbing three at a time, dumping them all on the floor next to his knees. He gropes blindly around the edges of the inside of the drawer before his fingers find a tiny indent and latch onto it, pulling upwards and dislodging the false bottom. He takes out the thin piece of wood and rests it vertically against one of the closed drawers. Beneath the false bottom, there are loose sheets of paper in plastic jackets and thin, non-descript USB sticks the contents of which could bring down several European governments — if they were ever to be released, but it's much more profitable to keep them secret. Sebastian separates them into two piles: those that need to be immediately destroyed, and those he can keep for further use.

As he shuffles through a stack of blue and brown envelopes, his finger slips on the surface of something glossy. He pulls it out from between two sealed envelopes, and recognises what it is instantly.

It's a strip of four photo booth pictures. The colours are dark, oversaturated and so terrible they are almost insulting. Sebastian remembers fishing for pound coins in his pocket one late night at Marylebone Station. He'd half dragged, half pushed an amiably drunken Jim into the photo booth next to the ticket machines. They'd had too much wine at the Nonpareil Club, and Sebastian was laughing into the collar of Jim's shirt as they both tried to squeeze into the tiny space. Jim had sat on his lap, knees pressing against the side of the booth, hands around Sebastian's neck for balance — and that's how he looks in the four identical pictures Sebastian has in his hand now, cheeks slightly flushed from alcohol, mouth downturned and eyebrows knotted into an affronted expression directed at Sebastian, whose face wears that rakish grin that comes with drunkenness and knowing he got his way.

Sebastian absent-mindedly runs his thumb along the smooth surface of the photo paper, laughing quietly to himself. The sound is muted by the expensive silk, cotton and wool of Jim's clothes hanging all around him, and it quickly dies in his throat. He puts the pictures in the left breast pocket of his shirt, and stands up. As he does, pins and needles go through his legs, and he nearly staggers and falls right back down, but he holds himself up just in time, grabbing onto one of the clothes rails. His fingers clutch at the cold metal and the sharp ends of clothes hangers dig into the inside of his palm as the muscles in his calves scream in protest. He realises that he hadn't noticed that he had been kneeling in the same position for enough time to make his legs go numb. He staggers out, and throws himself on Jim's bed, waiting for the sensation to pass, mildly annoyed by his own inattentiveness.

It has been five months since Reichenbach.

Sebastian checks his watch. It tells him the time in three of the world's capital cities, the current temperature and which way north is. It also tells him that it has been exactly thirty-eight hours, nine minutes and twenty-six seconds since he last slept.

He sits up, the pins and needles in his legs gone. He runs a hand over his face, closing his eyes.

It has been exactly five months, one day, fourteen hours, nine minutes and thirty-two seconds since Reichenbach.

At five months, one day, fourteen hours, nine minutes and forty seconds, his phone vibrates. He reads: _Man fitting description of SH seen in Hotel Bellevue, Toulouse. Posing as American tourist. Name: Cecil Barker._

Sebastian pockets his phone and stands up with new-found energy. The chase was back on.

 

\--

 

Cecil Barker proves a dead end. Sebastian tails a man in a checked green shirt up and down Toulouse until he is absolutely certain it is Sherlock Holmes, and lets his men capture him. They throw him in the boot of a car and drive to the river. Sebastian's gun feels like an itch at his side; he longs to take it out and to shoot Holmes full of holes that would be the envy of any Swiss cheese.

When Sebastian opens the boot, he is greeted with the sight of a very frightened man in a checked shirt and a wavy black wig – a man who is not Sherlock Holmes, and can only speak to them in frightened, half-crying Catalonian. He gets nothing out of the man except that he was paid by an Englishman to wear the shirt and the wig. Sebastian slams the boot down on his face. When he looks at his men, he sees them flinch back from the expression on his face.

If he were any less disciplined, Sebastian would shoot one of them, just to teach the others a lesson on what would happen to them if they made another mistake like that. But good associates are hard to come by these days, what with one thing and another; and he is aware that words are sometimes more powerful than bullets. He tells them everything that is going to happen to them should there be further slip-ups. He mentions the name Moriarty, just once, and it is enough for them — dangerous, weapon-wielding men, cream of the criminal crop — to turn pale with fear.

He tells them to dispose of the impostor in whichever way they see fit. He walks away to light a cigarette, his back to the car. There is a silenced, but satisfying sound of two gunshots, which Sebastian can only hear because he listens for them.

He smiles around the filter of his cigarette. There is a pig farm nearby, and its charges will be more than happy to dispose of the body.

 

\--

 

Sebastian sleeps, and dreams.

He dreams of orange-and-black fur whispering in the grass; of bullets whistling through the air; tigers roaring; rain sliding down the meaty leaves of tropical plants; and water, thunderous water, cascading white and green and blue and white again, into green, and black, and nothing.

There's water in his eyes and his ears. He sinks into the green and the black. His clothes are pulling him, dragging him down. He kicks his legs trying to get to the surface. He sinks deeper. He lashes out with his arms, trying to gain momentum. His fingers catch on fabric.

He blinks, squeezing sight back into his eyes.

Jim is floating in the water in front of him, suit, shirt and tie all billowing around him. Sebastian's hand snagged his jacket. His finger catches on a button, which pulls Jim closer to him. His skin is pale, like sun-bleached bone and cold as a block of ice. Sebastian grabs at the lapels of Jim's jacket, trying to pull him up. As he grabs the fabric, it turns slimy and slippery in his hands, like seaweed. He pulls harder. Jim's head lolls back, and then snaps forward.

Cold hands wrap around Sebastian's throat, hands that feel like jellyfish tendrils as they dig through his skin and into the cartilage and muscle. He opens his mouth to shout, and swallows water, green like the Swiss hills, and black like Jim's tie, and nothing.

He wakes up breathing heavily, heart hammering in his chest.

The rain is beating an erratic rhythm on the windows as he checks the clock on his bedside table. Half three in the morning.

It has been nineteen months since Reichenbach.

 

\--

 

The Honourable Ronald Adair is a young, go-getting entrepreneur, which is code for a no-direction, twenty-six year old law student living with heavy reliance on the patience and income of his father, the Earl of Maynooth, one of the leading figures in British diplomacy.

He introduces himself to Sebastian one February evening at the Bagatelle Club, buys him a drink and sings praise of _Three Months in the Jungle_. Sebastian is suspicious at first: these days, people don't eulogise him unless they are female, have a gun pointed at them or want something from him. However, there's only so much of well-placed praise that Sebastian can let slide off him before he gives in.

He lets Adair buy him another drink, and soon they are sitting at a table with Godfrey Milner, ad man, and Lord Balmoral, professional aristocrat. The game is whist, and the stakes are high enough to make Milner, an uncommonly careful man for a casual gambler, look vaguely uncomfortable. He knows he's sitting at the same table with Sebastian Moran, who has played better men out of a considerable amount of their money without them even beginning to notice how he did it. This kind of look always pleases Sebastian, because he knows he's in for an easy victory. The more nervous people are, the more likely they are to make a mistake. Lord Balmoral, however, is looking at Adair, and Sebastian's confidence falters. It's the type of look hunters get in their eye when they know they have a clear shot of the beast they are after, and they're silently figuring out the place its stuffed head with occupy on their trophy-laden wall. For a minute, Sebastian questions his choice.

It turns out, however, that Ronald Adair is remarkably good at cards. This is made even more impressive by the fact that, unlike Sebastian, who is exceptionally skilled in cheating at every conceivable card game, Ronald Adair plays with a sense of sportsmanship that is bordering on naïveté. Sebastian is long past believing in playing by the book. He believes that human nature is a chessboard, and he has spent the better part of his life happily alternating between black and white. He retains, however, that other trait of good card playing: he is outstandingly observant. So are his companions, naturally, but the thing that differentiates Sebastian from them is not the amount of information they take in from the way their opponents throw their cards on the table, the trumps they play or the way they sort the cards in their hand — it is the quality of observation that counts, the awareness of _what_ to observe rather than how much. What makes Sebastian a great card player is the fact that he does not confine himself to inspecting merely the table and the way the cards circulate on the felt green surface; but that he notes every variation, every little shift in the face of his opponents and his partner as the game progresses, assembling puzzle pieces of differences in expressions, inflection of speech, and flick of wrist, which form a complete picture of the true state of affairs. Sebastian doesn't read cards as much as he reads people. Ronald Adair, Sebastian observes from the manner he gathers up a trick, with his eyes sliding over his hand, reads cards with the meticulous precision of a mathematician. They make a great team, causing Lord Balmoral to mop his brow with his monogrammed handkerchief more than once.

At the end of the night, they have pocketed twenty thousand pounds between them. Although not the highest sum he has ever won, it is the biggest Sebastian has acquired in one sitting at the club. It is definitely more than Adair has ever won: he has the wild and confident glint in his eye of a man drunk on the power of his own victory. He insists that Sebastian come for a nightcap to his Park Lane flat, which he shares with his elder sister Hilda who, as Adair informs him, is currently away on a business trip. It is furnished with very new things which have been made to look very old through the aid of special tools and the money of gullible young professionals who can't tell apart a mass-produced chamber pot from a hand-made Victorian teapot. Sebastian is pleasantly surprised when Adair pulls out a bottle of Pol Roger '85 and pours them two glasses. The irony that the champagne is as old as the man pouring it is not lost on him.

"To Lady Luck," says Adair, raising his glass. "May she always smile on us."

 

\--

 

After the incident in Toulouse, he hears nothing substantial of Sherlock Holmes for a year. Nevertheless, there are clues of his still being alive scattered all over the world, snippets of which occasionally reach him. A Norwegian named Sigerson and his remarkable report on the lives of ascetic monks in Tibet, whose picture he sees in a Sunday edition of the _Guardian_ and recognises something Holmesian about the cheekbones which are nearly hidden by a straggly beard. In Düsseldorf, nearly six months after that, he is in a meeting with Von Herder, Moriarty's most trusted and skilled arms dealer, when he sees a copy of the _Rheinische Post_ on his desk, the front page article detailing an account of a German aiding the young state of South Sudan in exposing a terrorist cell seeking to topple its government.

He makes phone calls, sends out messages and agents, but every time it seems they are close to something, close to finding Sherlock Holmes or at least knowing his location for long enough to catch him, he is led to a wall.

The trail goes cold for four months.

It has been two years and ten months since Reichenbach.

It has been nearly three years of endlessly plotting, hitting dead ends, and chasing his tail. Sebastian knows about patience — he is a sniper and a card player, and both those things include extreme patience as a prerequisite for success — but he can only spare so much of it when he feels that Holmes is moving further away from him. He used to enjoy the hunt, the waiting, the manoeuvrings, and the chase, but now he wants to have Sherlock Holmes without having to play cat and mouse any longer, have him tortured to the point where he's begging to be killed, just for the pain to stop. He wants John Watson there, too: he wants him to watch. He wants him to know what it is like to see your best friend die before your eyes and not be able to do anything about it. He wants him to know the despair, the helplessness, and to feel the full extent of the pain as he shoots Sherlock Holmes before him, right between the eyes.

He sits on Jim's bed. The flat no longer smells like him — the pillows don't smell like anything but stale air and dust, but for a short while after Sebastian came back from Switzerland, they smelled like Jim. When he closes his eyes and breathes in deeply now, nearly three years later, he can imagine and pretend that they still do. There was a subtle cologne Jim wore, with a warm, mildly spicy smell that reminds Sebastian of bad, terrible ideas dancing around in the depths of Jim's eyes, like flames licking the side of a building, like tide crawling up a beach, like a bullet tearing flesh.

He lies down on the mattress, raising a soft cloud of dust. Lying there, Sebastian doesn't count the number of hours that he has spent awake; they are evident in the sluggishness of his limbs, the heaviness of his eyelids, and the fact that he thinks he can smell someone who has been dead for thirty-four months just as well as if he had his nose pressed against the curve of Jim's throat.

He is about as close to killing Sherlock Holmes as he is to the moon. His eyes slipping shut, Sebastian thinks he can hear, in a familiar, soft voice, the whispered words: " _A man's reach must exceed his grasp, my dear. What else are the stars for?_ "

 

\--

 

The web was unravelling. Sebastian finds that New Scotland Yard has become increasingly aware of the organisation's movements. He lets some of his more expendable men fall into the hands of the police, so that his more capable associates can stay afloat and the Yard thinks it's winning. Regrettably, he has to eliminate some who know too much and would be foolish enough to get caught. Former associates are handsomely paid or frightened into silence, as Sebastian finds it more difficult to piece some of the threads back together.

Camden House, the yellow brickwork building opposite 221B Baker Street, is bought by Moriarty's organisation under Sebastian's instructions and kept empty, except for his associates who are ordered to keep a permanent watch on 221B, led by a man named Parker, silently released of a murder charge a few years ago by a skilled team of legal experts. There is little result, however — John Watson is hardly ever at the flat, preferring to spend his time at the home of Sarah Sawyer. Still, Sebastian always makes sure that there is someone watching the house, because he would never forgive himself if Sherlock Holmes slipped from his grasp, should he appear there. He doesn't think it unlikely any more than John Watson does — the doctor has clearly stayed on at the flat for the same reason that Sebastian keeps an eye on it, although perhaps with a different motive in mind. Sebastian is unsure how he can afford the rent, but ultimately, it is not his concern. His chief and only concern, at this point, is finding Sherlock Holmes.

On a quiet night in mid-March, a small story on a late-night programme catches Sebastian's attention while he's idly flicking through TV channels. A correspondent with a heavy French accent is reporting about a newly developed area of geological research at the Université Montpellier 2. She is walking through the campus while talking about the various foreign scientists who have generously contributed to the improvement of the geology department's research facilities — but it's not her Sebastian is interested in. His eyes are caught on the crowd of students walking around behind her. One of them particularly stands out for his height, sallow cheeks and eyes flashing intently as he pauses a couple of paces behind her, whipping a phone out of his coat and furiously typing something on it. The cheeks are more sunken in than Sebastian remembers, and the hair is shorter, but there is no mistaking the profile.

After three more seconds, the man disappears out of the frame. Sebastian stares dumbly at the screen for a couple of moments, stunned, and then grabs his phone.

He sends his best men to Montpellier. They get so close to Holmes, they all but grab at his coat tails — he leads them on a merry chase across the city and slips away, as always, just when they think they have him cornered. Sebastian wonders how wise it was to order his associates to bring Holmes back alive. It is pointless to dwell on it, because Sherlock Holmes is once again beyond his grasp. He keeps his ear to the ground and his contacts combing every imaginable location where Holmes might be, determined that he will not let him slip next time. Sebastian's rifle waits, ready. He can almost hear it humming with anticipation.

In the last week of March, he and Ronald Adair dine at the Savoy, where Adair tells Sebastian all about his recently broken engagement with Edith Woodley, a tragically vapid socialite — and after, they end up at the Bagatelle Club for another game of whist. This time they play with Sir John Hardy, pharmaceutical mogul, and a man named Murray, who does not seem to do much more in life than sit at the club and play people out of their money. The game is a challenge, both because Murray is almost as good a player as he, and because Sebastian finds himself too distracted with thoughts of Holmes to focus on the cards. He and Adair win, but only by a slim margin.

Watching Sir Hardy and Murray write checks in their names is a glimmer of light in an otherwise bleak week for Sebastian. The triumph, however, is dimmed somewhat by the surly look on Adair's face. Upon leaving the club, he rounds on Sebastian.

"I know what you were doing in there," he says with a frown. "You think I'm only good at watching cards, right? Well, you're wrong. I've been watching you, and I saw what you did."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sebastian says.

"You're really good, aren't you," Adair chuckles sardonically. "You were cheating," he claims. "I saw it, I know how you did it, and I won't be part of it. It's completely disgraceful. I'll expose you. I'll report you to the club. No," he corrects himself, "I'll report you to the police and put a stop to this."

"You're prepared to risk the money and your reputation?"

"My money and reputation isn't what's at stake here," Adair assures him. "I can wash my hands of this completely. I'll return the money; say that you deceived me."

"Be realistic about this," warns Sebastian. "Who's going to take your word over mine? I've been coming to the club much longer than you."

"I have proof. I can show them exactly how you did it," Adair says smugly. "Your reputation would be in tatters. Sebastian Moran, the great gentleman, officer and card player — nothing but a common swindler. I'll expose you," he repeats. Sebastian wants to punch that sanctimonious grin off Adair's face, but there is a time and a place for everything.

"No," he says darkly. "You will try."

He walks away from the conversation, feeling a sense of triumph, but it is dwarfed considerably by the annoyance he feels as a result of his suddenly compromised position. Adair exposing him would not matter at any other time, but Sebastian does not need any kind of extra attention when he is trying to eliminate Sherlock Holmes. Too many members of Moriarty's organisation have been apprehended by the police for Sebastian to risk any more unwanted exposure.

Adair needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, he decides. There can be no loose ends.

Sebastian gives him a couple of minutes head start, and then follows him to number 427, Park Lane, the heat of the March evening making the hand clasped around the revolver in his pocket damp with sweat. He watches as the lights in Adair's sitting room switch on, and he sees him open the window in an attempt to let cool air in. He seems to be alone in the flat, for Sebastian can see no other light. He ducks into the doorway of 426 Park Lane under the pretence of shielding himself against the wind while he lights his cigarette. None of the people walking by on the street notice him take his revolver out or fix the silencer to the end of the barrel.

He watches Adair as he sits at his laptop with his back to the window, no doubt trying to make out his losses and winnings and how much money that he had gained while playing with Sebastian he should return. Sebastian retreats into the shadow and shelter of the doorway. He raises his gun, and aims. A London bus rattles by, and the Honourable Ronald Adair jerks, his entire body collapsing forwards in his seat and his head hitting the keyboard.

The blood that's sprayed the screen and the wall has barely started to drip down before Sebastian is gone from the doorway, leaving no trace behind him but a couple of seconds' whiff of cigarette smoke.

 

\--

 

A month after, Sebastian is walking at a leisurely pace towards Piccadilly when his phone buzzes in his pocket. The message from Parker reads: _Movement in 221B. Sitting room light on. Silhouette of SH clearly visible through curtains. Awaiting orders._

Sebastian texts back with one simple word: _Leave._

He turns back before reaching Berkeley Square and heads north, towards Marylebone and Baker Street. It is late at night, and by the time he reaches Camden House, the streets are all but deserted. He enters by way of the back door, letting himself in with his own key. He takes no care to walk quietly — the only people with access to the house are his own associates. His steps, although soft, echo through the empty house. He enters the room placed directly opposite the 221B sitting room. There is no light apart from the yellow glow of the streetlamps coming through the windows, muted slightly by the thick layer of dust on the glass.

Sebastian creeps forward to the window, knees bent in a crouching position just in case someone from the street or the building opposite should chance to be looking into the house. He kneels on the naked floorboards by the window. Out of his pocket, he takes a switchblade and with its aid loosens one of the boards, extracting from the space below it a long, thin bundle of rags. He places it on the floor in complete silence, and unwraps the rags to reveal a disassembled sniper rifle. He puts the rifle together in a series of clicks as all the parts slot into place. With a final clang, the rifle comes together.

Softly, Sebastian raises the window for half a foot, eyes shining with excitement as the street air washes over his face. He rests the barrel on the window ledge and cuddles the butt into his shoulder. Looking through the sights into the 221B sitting room window at the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes, he angles it so that he is aiming right between Holmes' eyes.

For a moment, there is an overwhelming sense of peace and content as Sebastian tightens his finger on the trigger. After three years, he was finally going to have his revenge. He was going to end Sherlock Holmes, and Jim Moriarty's death, his best friend's death, will not have been in vain.

He remembers something Jim had once said to him: _The biggest man alive is the man who's committed a murder, and not yet been found out._

He pulls the trigger.

In an instant, someone is on his back, knocking the rifle out of his hands and throwing Sebastian onto the floor. His face meets with the dusty wooden floor but for an instant — he is not caught by surprise for long, and he manages to throw the man off him. When the man's back hits the floor, the light from the street shines on his face. Rage and incomprehension fight for dominance in Sebastian's mind as he recognises the cat-like features of Sherlock Holmes, the man he was supposed to just have shot.

"No!" he cries, his hands flying towards Holmes' throat in an attempt to throttle him. There is a shout from behind him, and something heavy and metallic — the butt of a gun — hits the back of his head, and Sebastian once again crumples to the floor.

When he comes to, John Watson is sitting on his legs, and his right arm is twisted behind his back. With his left, he attempts to reach for the gun in his coat pocket, but before he does, Watson presses the barrel of his own revolver painfully into the back of his left hand.

"Don't even try," he growls.

Several sets of footsteps enter the room, police lights are lit, and Sebastian is raised to his feet by two police constables who hold his arms behind his back. Detective Inspector Lestrade enters the room, Sherlock Holmes on his heels. With a new surge of fury, Sebastian attempts to lunge at Holmes, but he is held back by the constables. Pain sears through his shoulder blades.

"You bastard!" he snarls. "You clever, fucking bastard!"

"Colonel," says Holmes, seemingly unfazed as he massages his throat, which is starting to sport reddened marks from where Sebastian's hands had tried to strangle him. "I don't think I've had the pleasure of seeing you since our last outing together at the Reichenbach Falls. Lestrade," he says, turning to the Detective Inspector, "let me introduce you to Colonel Sebastian Aloysius Moran, formerly of the Rifles in Helmand Province, and the best big game hunter that recent history has witnessed. He alone could be held responsible for the Bengal tiger nearing extinction."

"Never heard of him," says Lestrade.

"I am not surprised. When you're Moriarty's second in command, it's essential that you remain under the radar of the law," says Holmes.

"Moriarty's—"

"Oh, would you shut up and let me finish, Lestrade. You can leave your dumbfounded expression for later," snaps Holmes. Turning to Sebastian once again, he says: "But this time, it didn't work as well as you would have thought, did it? To be perfectly honest with you, you had me fooled for a second — I imagined you would be operating from the street."

"I will not stand here and be subject to cheap jibes and accusations," says Sebastian gruffly, turning to the Detective Inspector and doing his best to ignore Holmes. "I am obviously in the hands of the law, and I demand that things be done the legal way."

"Sounds reasonable," agrees Lestrade. "Sherlock, anything further before we pack him away?"

"I only wonder which charge you will prefer."

"Which charge?" Lestrade looks perplexed. "Well, the attempted murder of Sherlock Holmes, obviously!"

"Now that's where you're wrong," Holmes refutes. "I think that for once, you are to take the credit. Through your ingenious plotting — achieved, no doubt, as a result of your long experience as a Detective Inspector — you have made a remarkable arrest. Yes, Lestrade, all that I can do is offer my congratulations. With an intelligence and courage the rest of your team painfully lack, you've got him."

"Got him!" echoes Lestrade with evident disbelief. "And who exactly did I get?"

"Have you not been paying attention to anything I've said?" says Holmes, exasperated. "Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair through an open window of the second-floor front of 427 Park Lane, on the late evening of 30th March. In other words, the person your bumbling colleagues have been looking for this past month. If even the most astute member of your forensics team — let's not make it painfully obvious that I am referring to Anderson here — compares the bullet which killed Adair to the gun that Moran has in his left coat pocket, you'll find that I am, as always, completely right." It takes only a nod of the head from Lestrade for the constables to clamp Sebastian in handcuffs.

"I don't think I'll see you again, Colonel," says Holmes. "Enjoy prison. I am sure there's a book in there somewhere that you can put together. Call it _A Lifetime in Jail_ , maybe?" With a growl like a wounded animal, Sebastian lunges uselessly at Holmes, held back once again by the joint pressure of the two constables on his shoulders and arms.

"My only regret," smiles Holmes, "is that Jim Moriarty can't join you behind bars. But I think the ending he got is more suited to his taste. He did love a good, theatrical exit."

 

\--

 

The trial doesn't last long, but it elicits enormous public interest. For the ten days that Sebastian is in court, England's leading newspapers have his picture on their front page at least once every two days. He gets the longest possible sentence, and is ordered to spend it in Strangeways, a category A prison all too familiar to him from the stories of all the men that Jim had left to the mercy of the justice system, out of a whim or for profit.

He lies on the top bunk bed of his cell, staring at the featureless ceiling. The coarse blanket itches at the back of his neck, and nothing in the air moves. The bottom bunk is empty — he hasn't been assigned a cell mate yet, and the only company he gets during the first couple of months is the occasional taunting he receives from the prison guards through his cell door.

It is at this moment, lying on the uncomfortable bed, on the rough woollen blanket, that it comes to Sebastian's mind with a newness that makes his head spin and his stomach clench — Jim is dead. And nothing from now on can change that, or make it better. When Sebastian walked into Strangeways, he might have died as well, as far as everyone else is concerned.

 

\--

 

Sebastian had been in Strangeways for two years. Sherlock Holmes had won.

Sebastian closes his eyes, and presses his eyelids tightly together until red, and then white spots swim in his vision. Jim is dead. He had lost his best friend, his freedom, his job and his good name. None of these touched him as much as he thought they would — not his good name, his job or his freedom matter, not now that Jim was dead, now that they finished before they'd even started. He runs his hands over his face, breathing deeply.

There is a burst of knocks at his door — four short, rapid knocks which echo against the metal. He raises himself up from the bed just as the door swings open. Through it, he can see the prisoners in the cell across the corridor from his giving him bewildered looks. The surprise lasts for only a beat, and then the corridor is swarming with prisoners, trying to take advantage of the fact that all their cell doors have inexplicably opened of their own volition, and guards doing their best to stop them.

Sebastian jumps down from his bunk bed, landing on his feet and trying to assess the situation. His ears are deafened by a wailing siren — the alarm.

He makes for the door, and nearly slips on something which catches under his right shoe. He bends down to pick it up — somehow, a chess piece had rolled into his cell, a knight made out of polished, black stone. It is not a part of any of the chess sets they have in the prison. Completely thrown by this, he turns it about in his hands, examining it. It is then that he notices the message stuck to the base of the knight.

  


Heart in his throat, Sebastian sprints out of the cell.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://shellfish-dimes.livejournal.com/15984.html) on LiveJournal. The name Cecil Barker is borrowed from _The Valley of Fear_. The quote 'The biggest man alive is the man who's committed a murder, and not yet been found out' is from E.W. Hornung's _The Amateur Cracksman_. 'Aloysius' was the original intended name for Moran, according to one of ACD's early manuscripts. The picture Sebastian finds in Jim's wardrobe looks [a bit like this](http://jeremyjohnirons.tumblr.com/post/3759429619/lol-it-looks-nothing-like-him-but-its-supposed-to).


End file.
